How do you keep your little ones busy on the plane? Particularly lap infants? Big D has always been a great traveler, starting when he was little. A couple of books, some snacks, crayons, and Play-Doh and we were all set for any plane flight from 1 hour to 12 hours.

When Tater Tot came along, for our first flight as a moving toddler (9 months) I packed our carry-on the same way. The only thing I forgot was that he is a much more active kid and would only want to run up and down the aisles, ignoring all the carefully packed books, snacks, and crayons; good thing it was only a one hour flight to Seattle. On our next flight (5 hours to Hawaii), I packed everything I could think of from post-its to books to silly putty to annoying electronic gadgets and so much more.

There are so many amazing sights to see in Paris that it is hard to fit it all in one trip. However, what we parents want to do, may not be what our toddlers want to do. I may love spending the entire day at the Louvre looking at art, but add our 18 month old big D to the equation and my dream becomes a nightmare. Here were some of our favorite sights/activities from our 2012 Paris trip:

So how does one successfully travel with kids under age 5 and still enjoy oneself? After many domestic and international trips with one and then two kids under the age of five, we have learned a lot. Here are my top 5 travel tips for traveling with kids under age 5.

1. Set expectations in line with what is achievable; or get rid of expectations all together. In general, We do not set a lot of expectations for our trips or even every day of the trip. We will set a loose itinerary and have read up on the sights/activities that we want to do when we travel, but do not have a lot of expectations on what I MUST see or do on a trip; which leads to #2.

I first started thinking about creating a blog when people called me brave. I don’t tend to think of myself as very brave. I hadn’t done anything that I thought of as brave. Someone who is brave does amazing things like give a speech in front of thousands of people, or fights brain cancer, or bungee jump off bridges. I hadn’t done any of these things. I had gone on an international trip with my family. My husband and I and our three year old son, big D, and 5 week old, tater tot, had taken an amazing trip to Italy. I hadn’t thought that it was brave our courageous, but just really fun.

As I posted facebook updates from our travels, people kept telling me I was brave to travel with young kids, so it gave me pause to think about why. Was I brave? Did it take courage to take two small children on long plane flights around the world?